Devin, what pushes or makes the KILL BILL material rather pricey, for the most part?
Hey Jeff,
just my speculation but my feeling is...
1) Kill Bill is a "cool" American movie from a respected director which has a
strong Japanese connection. So Japanese people want it and they want the Japanese version. Huge generalisation but if something from the USA has a Japanese connection in it, it's news.
2) Whenever Kill Bill B2s and B1s come up there are ALWAYS the same 2-3 bidders who seem to be hoarding most of the Japanese Kill Bill material.
The 3 B1s that I picked up were an anomaly. The seller only posted them for few days and they only had 3 or 4 watchers. I didn't have to get into a bidding battle. I just paid the opening bid price. I was sweating like a hog as the timer counted down waiting for one of the regulars to pop in. Maybe they passed because the posters had some damage on the edges.
3) Often the Japanese versions are posted with a low opening price $10 to $20. So of course, that generates a lot of watches and subsequent bidding. Some of the foreign versions are posted with a higher opening bid ($100 and over) and they've been sitting around for months.
4) Scarcity, these character versions / Kill List / Uma in the Desert just don't pop up as often. The Desert version came up about 2 or 3 months ago but was quickly pulled from auction. I bought another poster from the same seller and asked him about it and he said that the first bidder (at $20) had contacted him and they had made a deal. On a side note, a month later, the Desert went for $900 on EMP, my feeling is that it was the same copy. The regular B1s of KB1 Uma in yellow and KB2 Uma in the bride outfit can usually be had for about $50-70. Another example, about 4 months ago, vinyl banners of the character versions went up for sale, they too went for a crazy amount (unfortunately I forget the actual numbers). Cinemasterpieces had a set of 3 that sold for $5000.
5) Bidding on Yahoo Japan is much like EMP, Audrey Hepburn, Steve McQueen, Humphrey Bogart etc.. are all hard to get. If these Kill Bills, especially the GoGo and Elle Driver, showed up on EMP ($10 says they do...), they'd probably go for $200 and up... Whereas the US 1 sheet for KB2 (side profile of Uma with sword) would go for $20, on Yahoo Japan that version just sits there.
I'm starting to ramble, sorry but, again this is just my speculation, I'm sure that someone like Armin or Matt could give a much better informed opinion.
